Upcoming Events

National | Environment

no events match your query!

New Events

National

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

offsite link Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

offsite link Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Animal Feeds In Ireland Are Contaminated With GMOs

category national | environment | feature author Tuesday December 07, 2004 23:39author by Christine Raab-Heine - CLEAN(Cavan Leitrim Environmental Awareness Network)Ltdauthor email chheine at iolfree dot ie Report this post to the editors

GM Regulations for Labelling of Animal Feed are a Farce

Are you aware that all compound feeds commonly fed to farm animals contain GM maize and other GM meal? Given the state of information and discussion in this country on GMOs, many a farmer won't know this. But worse: it is virtually impossible for conventional farmers, especially small farmers, to get GM free compound feeds from their local suppliers. We are pretty sure that the presence of GMOs in animal feedstuffs is well known to the Department of Agriculture and other officials, but did they properly inform small farmers and consumers? Farmers and consumers: please check the small print on feed bags and food labels.


  • We (Cavan Leitrim Environmental Awareness Network) urgently call on all farmers to demand GM free feeds.
  • We urgently call on consumers to demand GM free meat, eggs and milk.
  • We urgently call on the government to take action that GM free feeds are available and GM feeds banned.
  • We urgently request that labelling of GM meat, milk and eggs i.e. from animals fed on GM feeds be labelled as such.
  • We urgently call on the government to keep Ireland GM free. This is the only way to avoid any more problems for farmers and consumers.
  • We urgently call on the government, the EU, and on our Irish representatives there, to work towards a GM free European Union, whilst noting that all the directives, regulations and labelling within the EU make no sense, if the countries of origin of imports cannot guarantee that their products are GM free.

Related Links:
Will Bertie give us a GMO time bomb for Christmas? A GM-Free Network press release.
Round up of UK Anti-GM protests via Indymedia UK.
Save Our Seeds.


Feed mills freely label their feeds as containing GM! They say that the countries of origin cannot give guarantees that their exports are not contaminated with GM, and so they don’t even bother to examine the GM content, or attempt to keep the content below 0.9%, which would mean that the feed would not have to be labelled as containing GM. We are further not told about the actual percentage of GM content. This is one of many flaws in the EU regulations on GMOs. Another flaw is the fact that meat from animals fed on GMOs does not have to be labelled as such. If consumers would have the opportunity to insist on GM free meat, it would not be so easy to infect our farm animals and products with GMOs, and the actual farce of labelling feeds we have at the moment would become an instrument helping to keep GMOs out of the country.

If basically all Irish meat, apart from qualified organic meat, is GM meat, i.e. meat from animals fed on GMOs, this might have, apart from the unforeseeable dangers to animal and human health, serious effects on the Irish farm, food, gastronomic and tourism sectors. Conversely keeping Irish feedstuffs and meat GM free could be a boost to these sectors. Immediate action is needed here as it is now that the bulk of feeding compounds starts. Let us have GM free lambs next year.

Ireland is, like other EU countries, required by the EU Commission to develop a national strategy and best practices to ensure the coexistence of genetically modified crops with conventional and organic farming. One might think this is to protect conventional and organic farmers. It isn’t. It is to facilitate GM farming:

“1. No form of agriculture, be it conventional, organic or agriculture using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), should be excluded in the European Union.“ (Commission Recommendation)

The labels show that conventional livestock farming is already excluded by the non availability of GM free compound feeds.

Why is this important?

  • Because we do not want to eat produce created with GMO’s,
  • Because we do not want to support the creation of GMO crops or the design of GM-creatures!

Why do we not want this to happen?
Because as GM technology is an invasive technology, there is no co-existence between GMO and "normal" organisms possible. This has the unavoidable and ultimate consequence that if we allow GMO technology now, we will have no other organisms than genetically modified ones living on this planet in the future! We will never have a choice again!

As this is the simple and dreary truth, this technology is undemocratic, because it determines the ultimate future of the whole planet and all living things on it, potentially including the human race, without any need or justification!

In common with other new technologies, the development of genetic engineering is largely controlled by a few powerful corporations. These corporations exert unprecedented influence over governments and academia, who are both failing in their obligation to adequately monitor and control the development and use of this technology and to safeguard public health and the environment.

It is clear that there is too much uncertainty about GMOs, and consequently we cannot accept them!

And so:
  1. We urgently call on all farmers to demand GM free feeds.
  2. We urgently call on consumers to demand GM free meat, eggs and milk.
  3. We urgently call on the government to take action that GM free feeds are available and GM feeds banned.
  4. We urgently request that labelling of GM meat, milk and eggs i.e. from animals fed on GM feeds be labelled as such.
  5. We urgently call on the government to keep Ireland GM free. This is the only way to avoid any more problems for farmers and consumers.
  6. We urgently call on the government, the EU, and on our Irish representatives there, to work towards a GM free European Union, whilst noting that all the directives, regulations and labelling within the EU make no sense, if the countries of origin of imports cannot guarantee that their products are GM free.

Further notes:
Let us, as citizens, maintain this:
In life absolute certainty does not exist. Therefore any risk analysis, also for GMOs, is based on reasoned assumptions. Our assumptions are based on the best available data and knowledge. In case we conclude that there is too much uncertainty about the product with respect to possible adverse effects for human health and the environment, a product will not be accepted.

Only some weeks ago a vCJD case was diagnosed in Ireland, which only developed after an incubation period of many years, and which is thought to have been caused from eating meat from cattle fed on meat and bone meal. We all know that it was only disclosed after years that this caused BSE. Feeding meat and bone meal to herbivores was unnatural. Feeding GMOs to animals is also unnatural, as is the production of them in the first instance, which is unfortunately developed globally by big corporations. We take an enormous risk by eating meat or drinking milk from animals fed on GMOs!

Only recently the IFA showed concern in respect of a case of contamination of feeds with bones in imported feed ingredients. The ongoing GM contamination, however, was not mentioned in this context!

Without going into details regarding all issues of concern with respect to GMOs, we wish to stress, that one of the key findings of a new report by Freese and Schubert on “Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Modified Foods” (available on www.foe.org ) was
“The failure of companies to test for most possible unintended effects of the unpredictable genetic engineering process; in particular, there is a lack of long-term animal feeding studies”.
The kind of safety we are promised by scientific risk assessments in the EU becomes clear in a recent assessment report for GM cotton:

“A comment was made by Miep Bos in respect of the notification report: The GMO should not be admitted because the notification states too often, that the product is “highly unlikely to have any adverse effect”. There are no hard facts but only assumptions that the product will not be harmful. That is not sufficient.”

The answer from Netherlands CA was: “Within science absolute certainty does not exist. Therefore any scientific risk analysis, also for GMOs, is based on reasoned assumptions. These assumptions are based on the best available scientific data and knowledge. In case it is concluded that there is too much uncertainty about the product with respect to possible adverse effects for human health and the environment, a product will not be admitted.”

Science was and is often helpful in explaining what has happened, albeit it has so far failed in explaining with certainty causes and origins of Aids, BSE and vCJD, for example. Science might be successful to develop new technologies, but science has not shown so far to be in a position to predict, determine or evaluate with certainty possible outcomes of such inventions.
As econexus puts it: “The application of new technologies has historically been problematic. Though they are often proposed as a solution to a current problem they themselves may create new ones which were not predicted in time and others that were predicted only by specialists who were ignored. Additionally, the hope of a simple technical solution to a complex problem may distract attention and divert resources from essential political and social responses to the initial or underlying problem. (../www.econexus.info)

One of the findings of Freese/Schubert and also of Wilson, Latham, Steinbrecher: Genome Scrambling – Myth or Reality? (available on the econexus website) was that their is a huge lack of independent “available” tests for long term effects of GMOs.

At the same time when the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2004 has passed a moratorium on the further release of genetically modified organisms until such time that they can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, to be safe for biodiversity, human health and animal health, the US plans to allow contamination of food crops with GM experimental crops. As two thirds of US experimental GM crops contain genes classified as confidential, there are no possibilities to detect them. (www.foe.co.uk)

According to the ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications), the US was growing 42.8 million hectares of the global transgenic crop area (63% of global total) in 2003. (Global Status of Commercialized Transgenic Crops:2003)

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   GM-free Milk Campaign UK     pc    Mon Dec 06, 2004 20:35 
   Please sign the GM-free Ireland petition     Michael O'Callaghan    Tue Dec 07, 2004 02:06 
   anna kavanagh     Kavanagh    Tue Dec 07, 2004 18:49 
   Great article - thanks for it     duine beag glas    Wed Dec 08, 2004 00:00 
   GM Feeds     John Robinson    Wed Dec 08, 2004 23:27 
   GM foods     Ray    Thu Dec 09, 2004 09:58 
   GM Columbian Nose Candy     ared dread    Thu Dec 09, 2004 21:18 
   Deadly food supplement, Tryptophan     Raymond McInerney    Fri Dec 10, 2004 21:00 
   gm &cjd     arthur    Sat Dec 11, 2004 21:49 
 10   i was a teenage pig farmer     too lazy for anarchy    Tue Dec 14, 2004 01:06 
 11   GM foods - the real argument     Brian O'Mahony    Wed Dec 15, 2004 15:00 
 12   ten days later hits rte radio     eeekkk    Thu Dec 16, 2004 19:52 
 13   False Advertising!!!     Pissed off Customer    Wed Jan 19, 2005 23:56 
 14   Monsanto fights back over controversial GM study     Ray McInerney    Thu May 26, 2005 18:05 


Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy